He glanced skittishly at the wrinkled faces and could only manage to lift one corner of his mouth as a futile attempt to greet them. Eight years, that was how long it took him to prepare for the final battle.

They climbed into a cab, the older man in the trio occupying his rightful space in the front seat. In the back, the young man’s body pushed against the car door like a cornered cat while the old woman’s drooping thighs spread on the other end. 

“Did you have a pleasant flight?” The woman asked quietly, scrutinizing the young man. 

“Yes.” The young man nodded towards the flashing views outside the window.  

“We’ll go home for dinner, is that alright Jake?” The bony old man in the front twisted his skeletons slightly to the back, but rested his eyes only on the driver’s seat. 

“Yes.” The young man again nodded towards the car window. The car fell to an abyss of silence. Gravity pulled them deeper down and deeper still until Jake heard the fibers of his body crackling in the empty spaces, like drops of water in a frying pan. 

Eight years, Jake. Do it right.  

#

They soon arrived home, a glamorous apartment with well-waxed wooden furniture and tactful decoration, but no disorder ever present; any furniture store would have gladly presented the apartment as it was, arranged to perfection in the most extraneous details that it appeared uninhabited. The family members each headed in their own directions -- the father to the study, the mother to the kitchen, and the son to his own room. 

Slowly turning the handle as if he expected something on the other side, Jake Li peeked into his door. His room did not bear the weight of its owner’s eight years of absence. His wooden furniture had an irrational animation and gleamed softly under the afternoon sun. All the Iron Man suits he bought as a child still stood in a line along the edge of the shelf like tin soldiers; books from his adolescence and childhood bore unfamiliar titles. Even the bed was made, as if someone had hoped for his return. Nonetheless, Jake didn’t inform his parents of the plan to stay for the night, only to maintain the freedom of leaving and to keep his flooding conscious at bay. 

But it was eight years. He heard himself say. 

#

After an unbearably long torment of waiting, during which Jake composed in his mind an excellent speech of his sufferings in the U.S. that would have ignited sympathy in even a sociopath, he headed towards the dining room. The trio sat around the dining table designed for a company of eight and ate in a conspicuous quiet that swallowing sounds echoed in the empty spaces. 

Stuffy silence. Jake held the chopsticks shakily. A piece of bok choy slipped between the bamboo chopsticks and almost fell out of grasp, but Jake regained control and sent it to his teeth. 

Like their worthy opponent. Jake heard himself say. 

Flawless. 

But flawless for what? 

For the war. 

#

“I made your favorite braised pork.” At last, the mother spoke and brought Jake back to the battlefield. 

The battle horn. The young man shivered a bit under the impact. In the past, they would have remained separate in their own cold reticence until he spoke, but now opportunities pushed him onto the stage at an inopportune moment. 

Silence. Jake raised his eyes. Both the parents had their unconcerned glances to the newspapers still, and the familiar scene that took place every meal during his childhood and adolescence pulled a string.  

Eight years, for Christ’s sake. Eight years.

Explosion. He bounced onto his feet and slammed the table with so much force that the table tipped and landed again with the sound of a fired cannon; his hands burned under the impact. “Do you not wonder anything at all? It’s been eight years. Eight, years! ” 

The voice of his father. “Yes, we do. So why don’t you tell us.” His father had the usual condescending flat tone that raised questions as though he already knew the answers. His piercing eyes, unaffected by old age, skimmed through the lines of his newspaper. 

An overwhelming silence. Jake stared at the old man. He opens his mouth a couple of times, but no words came out. 

A shuffling sound of paper. The father looked up across the table at Jake with his signature look of aloof judgement while flipping the pages. “You blame us for your sufferings abroad, don’t you? You think it was wrong of us to send you abroad.” The piercing eyes landed on Jake.

Silence again. But Jake held the gaze steadily, supposing the ideal calmness and distance. “Yes. It was your fault.” He met the piercing eyes and those brows dotted in white. The father looked right back, raising one brow in astonishment. 

A colorless smoke swelled in the air. 

Air raid alarms took the form of silence. 

Eight years. Eight years at stake. 

Hold on.

He felt his mother’s eyes upon him too. The weight was dissolving him quickly like wind blowing at a sand statue. He would have wished for such intense attention a few years ago, but it came too late. 

Stare back. 

Eight years. Eight years. 

He crawled in a foreign country, through broken English phrases and  lonely lunches. He might have learned a few things, grown up a little, but lost too much that the gains impaled him; he became but a sheer slim of a shadowy ghost.  

Eight years. He came home only twice a year, a total of one month annually, only to punish and force empathy out of them. 

He wanted to hear them speak the words of an apology with these haughty mouths. 

Say you’re sorry.

They stared through each other and into the vast gleaming spaces of steadfast perfection, of speckless indifference and pride. 

Keep it together. 

Eight years. Eight years drowning but nobody came. 

Silence in the air. 

Eight years. 

#

Then without any warning, Jake won.

The eye contact broke too soon; his father accidentally knocked over a bowl while moving his elbow slightly. With a loud clatter, rice spilled all over his glossy polyester pants. The effect was obvious: a look of anxiety and abashment replaced the flawlessly indifferent contenance. The mother stared dumbfounded at her husband before getting up to aid him with the mess; she hadn’t seen spilled rice or her husband in a state of chaos for decades. Jake watched. 

At last, the father looked up again, but rather panicked. “Then we’re sorry. Forgive us.”
Jake frowned. “No. It’s not just that.”
“What else?” The older man inquired, leaning his body towards his son.
Jake inhaled. One time, two times, three times. 

What else? 

#

“What else? I’ll tell you. I had no friends. I had to learn a new language like a goddamn moron. These Americans, they’re not my people! I don’t know nor care what they’re talking about! I would’ve had friends in China. I would’ve done well in school. There wouldn’t have been these goddamn Americans laughing at how I don’t speak English. I would have been happy if you had only let me stay in China. I would have been happy.” Words burst out and burned until they quivered meekly in his voice. The only sound that remained when he finished was the breathing of his own judgements. 

Jake took a deep breath to ensure air entered his lungs before taking his seat again. The wooden dining table reflected the apricot overhead light with an obtrusive tenderness. 

#

“We’re sorry. We didn’t know you had problems adjusting. You used to be so outgoing, and every time we saw you, you always looked so...American. You listened to English songs only, wrote in English, hated all the Chinese students in your school… You should have said something. Why didn’t you tell us you wanted to come back? We could’ve taken you back… It didn’t have to... I'm sorry.” His father said softly while attempting at a pathetic smile. His mother blinked down at the table with red eyes. 

Now Jake truly won.

At last, the outcome worthy of eight years. He felt the fibers in his body stretch out in the room, filling the gap between his young soul and the empty shell of his skin. He grew. 

But he looked at them with the lost eyes of a stray child. Then, unexpectedly, his young body started shrinking like a leaking balloon. Jake wanted a treaty instead, to hear them say they meant to punish him for being an awful son, so that the trio would remain enemies and he would hate them with divine justice. Then he wouldn’t have to feel the weight of eight years peeling off his skin until he was nothing more than a young boy with scraped knees and teary eyes, looking up at his parents and waiting for a hug that never came.